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Monday, September 15, 2014

Cyrus Daruwalla was lost in his thoughts sitting outside the
Kalvani Bakery in Juhu. With a beard on
his chin, extremely fair complexion, thick framed specs and loose Kurtas he
looked like a script writer looking for ideas for his new movie. Cyrus however was
a law student from Delhi. He had come to Mumbai for his friend’s wedding.

He didn’t like the Mumbai weather. He preferred the Delhi
heat over this humidity which really drove him crazy. He had decided years ago
that he would avoid visiting the city in the future. But then he had to be
there that day.

It wasn’t his friend’s wedding. He had a bigger, more important
reason to be in Mumbai that day. None of his friends knew about it. He didn’t
want to tell anyone since it wouldn’t help his cause. It was time for him to
handle it all by himself. He was quite worried about it. He knew this would his
last chance. It was Now or Never for him.
He didn’t know whether this was the right thing to do at this point of
time, but he really had no option.

“Cool down! Cyrus! It will be fine. You will get it
right. This shouldn’t be a problem for a
six feet hunk like you”, he told himself.

Cyrus got up and started walking towards the ice-cream
trolley that was parked at the corner of the lane.

Once he was near it, he reached for
his wallet and asked for a Chocolate ice-cream cone. He gave the cone to the nine year old girl
who was with him.

A visiting card had slipped out and floated to the ground when Cyrus opened his wallet. It lay there behind a discarded ice-cream cup.

There was something handwritten on the other side of the
visiting card.
It read ‘Mission Roohi – Do it Today’.

Ramada Hotel, Juhu, Mumbai – 20:15

Meanwhile, the picture that she clicked disturbed Jennifer
very much. What was the tall guy planning?
Was there some kind of drug in the ice-cream that Roohi was having? The
tall guy with curly hair was like the cool dude you see in the movies and ads.
But then that was no reason to believe that he had noble intentions and that he
wouldn't harm the girl.

She wondered if the tall guy was
Roohi’s relative or a family friend. But if he was, her parents would
immediately contact him. So Roohi’s parents definitely didn’t know this
guy. She closely examined the photo again.There was no trace of fear on Roohi’s face. A kid would only be happy when a stranger
offered her an ice-cream. May be the
tall guy was trying to keep her happy so that she didn’t create a nuisance
before he took her away to a lonely spot.

May be the tall guy wasn’t
alone. May be he was just assisting someone kidnap the girl. Given his good
looks, he might have been hired by some goons to kidnap the girl and hand her
over to them. Jennifer’s mind was jammed with all these thoughts when she
realized that was losing time by pondering about all this. She had to reach
Roohi’s parents.

She
immediately opened the Facebook page, saw the number in the post and tried
calling Tara. Out of coverage area was the response that she had got. She
immediately tried messaging Tara on Facebook but couldn’t as she wasn’t her
friend. She sent a friend request. She felt that it wasn’t a good idea to post
the information that she had on a public forum.

The Dutta’s
Residence, Mumbai 20:00

Tara was quite irritated with the responses that she got on
Facebook. She was looking for information out there and not sympathy messages. She
wondered how she reacted when she saw such messages. She would always dismiss
them as useless content that spammed her wall. She now prayed that others don't do that with her post and instead gave her some information about her missing daughter.

Shekhar was calm thinking of the various places where his
daughter could go. He had taught Roohi to assess strangers and watch out for certain signs. More importantly, he had taught her to trust her instincts. May be a child's instincts could be swayed. Could this have acted against her right now? He hoped and prayed that she would have the presence of mind to cry out and and alert passersby if she really was kidnapped. He closed his eyes and told himself that worrying about Roohi wouldn’t help him or Tara. He was going to stay positive and find a way out.

There were a few messages where the people who claimed to
have seen a girl but ended up providing irrelevant information when she called
them. Tara noticed a new comment that provided some irrelevant information. This
really irked Tara.

“Facebook is bull shit. How can someone from Bangalore
contact us without even reading the complete information that Roohi is lost
in Mumbai? “ she shouted at Shekhar.

“Tara, we don’t have a choice. Do we? We cannot ignore any message
just because we got 10 irrelevant calls. There might be someone who might actually
spot Roohi and contact us” said Shekhar trying to pacify Tara and making sure
that they left no stone unturned to find Roohi.

“I don’t think so. We are in a panic mode out here and this
seems to be some kind of entertainment to all these fools on Facebook," replied Tara switching off her mobile data connection that was draining her
battery.